Cleere Vision

by Bret Senft

From the Sunshine State come the hot photo illustrations of Carol Cleere. Carol Cleere's photo illustrations are certainly eye-catching. What is even more impressive is that this dazzling work is all part of her day job, as staff news photographer at the Tallahassee Democrat, (Florida's capitol in the northwest Panhandle.) Her illustrations are done on a shoestring budget, at home on her Mac G3, and their quality is testimony to her creative imagination, initiative and resourcefulness. Most days, she is out shooting a news event, turning in the film at work, then rushing home to work on an illustration to accompany an article in the next day's paper. Environment (nature, rather than nurture) appears to have determined the course of Cleere's work life. Raised in Pensacola, Florida, she recalls,"beautiful white sand, sailing and surfing since the third grade."

After high school, she attended the University of Minnesota (an older sister "told me to experience something different.") in between ski runs, she shot for the university's prestigious campus newspaper and freelanced for various Minnesota publications. After a few years freelancing for both local and national papers and having her work appear in magazines such as Sports Illustrated, Cleere joined the staff of the Democrat in 1997. It was there that she discovered computers and photo illustration, "initially I was afraid of computers and now I've spent my savings on a G3." Plus a Nikon Super Cool-scan LS1000 for negative film, and a UMAX flatbed scanner.

Citing Joel Peter Witkin, Frida Kahlo and David LaChapelle as major influences, she blends people, objects (found at flea markets from Manhattan to Mexico), backgrounds and colors to illustrate the newspaper's articles. For example, for a Florida State University production of Hamlet, she bought a kiddy pool, painted its interior turquoise, filled it with water and had the production's drowned Ophelia lie in it; the student's hair flowed among flowers (arranged by the reporter writing the story.)

For an FSU visit by composer John Corigliano - who wrote The Ghost of Versailles, on commission for the Metropolitan Opera House - Cleere degraded an image or Versailles for a background, and created a cut up caricature of Corigliano holding a tiny red violin in one hand and a "ghost" in the other (a small image of Cleere's friend nude with angel wings.)

For models, "I usually grab friends, or the cafeteria girl or my neighbor and do these in a couple of days. Then I read about other illustrators who get two weeks, and have professional models. I do my paintings at the kitchen table and my carpentry on the back porch. As for digital imaging, I learned on my own. Working at a small paper has allowed me to learn, make mistakes and have the liberty to just try things," she admits. Quite a bold statement, but then again, it is typical of such a creative image maker.

Photo District News
August 2000